All sorts of Christmassy
by OrangeLovePerson
Summary: A bunch of mostly fluffy missing moments between Ron and Hermione, set in various Decembers. Happy holidays! :)
1. Chapter 1

_**A.N.:** Hi :) Here comes a little missing moments collection. It's mostly very fluffy and all about Ron and Hermione. I plan to upload two chapters a day, finishing on December 23. I hope you enjoy reading and leave me a comment! :D _

_A big thank you to **CeeCeeSings** for her lovely and helpful Beta-reading!_

* * *

 ** _December, 1991_**

It was an unusual afternoon for everyone in the Hogwarts library:

For Penelope Clearwater, a lovely and still quite earnest fourth grader, it was an unusual afternoon because her class mate, Percy Weasley, had smiled at her today. She'd never really spend a lot of thoughts on him before; she had to admit that his smile was rather nice.

For Cedric Diggory, a charming and good looking boy the same age as Penelope, this afternoon was unusual, because he'd found a tiny, crumbled piece of parchment at the bottom of his bag. Someone had drawn a small love heart on it, and Cedric was curious about who it might have been. Also, he'd found an old, dirty sock at the bottom of said bag, which might even count as more peculiar than the wordless love letter, for Cedric tended to be a very well organised young man.

For Madam Pince, the librarian, this afternoon was especially unusual, because Hogwarts' janitor Argus Filch helped her to repair an old chest of drawers close to her desk. The one in which all the freshly returned books were stored during the day time (before Madam Pince made them fly back into their original book shelves every evening). She surely didn't like a lot of people in this school, Madam Pince, but Argus Filch might perhaps count as one of the few she truly did tolerate.

But the most unusual thing in the library that afternoon was probably Hermione Granger's situation.

Hermione was twelve and bright and buck-toothed, and for the first time ever, she didn't use the Hogwarts library to read or to study in it. She wasn't even thinking about anything school-related in the slightest; not even about Nicholas Flammel, that mysterious man Hagrid had mentioned and about whom she and her friends had tried to find books about in this very place.

No, in fact, she was thinking about exactly that: her friends.

Hermione Granger had actual friends here in Hogwarts. She'd never really had a lot of people to call just that – friends - but _here_ she did.

It wasn't that she hadn't _tried_ hard enough to make friends before her time in Hogwarts! No, Hermione had done a lot of embarrassing and unusual nonsense in order to get someone, _anyone_ , to like her. To notice her. During her time in primary school,- _muggle_ primary school, as she would now smugly call it in her head, - Hermione had gained the liking of most teachers, but of the other kids... not so much.

Most people had rolled their eyes at her, whenever she'd said something in class. They'd believed her to be a little arrogant. Whenever she had tried to blend in, or to join them in games on the playground, people would only get more annoyed with her. The harder she tried, the worse it got, it seemed. So Hermione chose to do something better with her time, instead: Each and every lunch break, she sat in one of the nicer, quieter corners of the school yard, immersed in the pages of a book.

 _Any_ book, for that matter. Books were easy. Books understood her. There were fictional stories and fairy tales and comics that made her smile, as well as interesting school books or fascinating science fact books that made her wrinkle her forehead in concentration. Hermione had read entire encyclopaedias, before some of her classmates had even learned to finish simple children's novels without an adult's help. Not, that she wanted to judge her classmates. No, Hermione wanted to not care any more about them all together. She had books. Books, and her parents, and her cousins Louis and Melissa, too. (Although her cousins were not around very often. In fact, Hermione barely knew them.) It didn't matter what the kids in school thought of her.

They'd never understand her. Her with her confusing, most secret abilities.

The ones that were so scary and inexplicable, that Hermione would wonder whether she was sick. Whether her brain was somehow damaged. But other kids had imaginary friends, hadn't they? Could it be that Hermione had imaginary talents? It was normal for young children to be overly creative in such ways, right? To see and to hear things that were not really there...

No, Hermione wasn't sick, she'd then decided. She was perfectly normal, really. There was no such thing as magic or superpowers or whatever else she'd previously assumed she might have.

Except that there was.

There was something like magic. Not just _like_ magic, in fact. Real magic. And it had all been true, all been an actual part of her for so long!

Learning about Hogwarts had made Hermione believe that all the scary somethings she'd always ignored might be important, after all. If magic was real, and her ability to use it was real, then maybe her creeping fear of not being normal made sense, too. Maybe she wasn't normal for a _reason_. Maybe there existed an entire world of book-loving, aspiring people out there. Of little girls who weren't only talking about clothes or ponies all the time, like some of Hermione's muggle classmates here did. Of little boys that weren't always avoiding to do their homework. Of people who appreciated it, when Hermione made their cats fly gently out of the trees they were stuck in, instead of staring her down and asking for explanations that weren't possible.

An entire world of people like her.

Well, Hermione thought with a chuckle, she'd quickly learned that _that_ wasn't true.

Now, after several months here in Hogwarts and a few less of being friends with Ron Weasley and (the famous) Harry Potter, Hermione wasn't disappointed any longer to find that her classmates here were not all that different from the kids at home. It was nice to not keep her magical abilities a secret any more. But apart from that, Hermione had not changed much. And still, she'd coincidentally found the truest of friends here.

They were a bit lazy sometimes, but she would work on that. They were brave and loyal and very funny, the two of them. Yes, Harry and Ron were quite cool.

And now it was time to buy them each something nice for Christmas.

It was weirdly exciting.

In front of her on the library table lay a small list, written in neat handwriting on one of the gently ripped-out pages of her notebook. She'd scribbled out several ideas for presents already, but she hoped to come up with a few more.

Both Harry and Ron loved Quidditch, so perhaps she should buy them something nice about that: a book, maybe. She'd seen some pretty interesting books about Quidditch here in the library, as far as books about Quidditch could be considered interesting. And surely Ron's and Harry's lack of interest in reading would not involve their favourite sport, right?

But then again, she obviously couldn't give Ron and Harry something they had to return to the library again at one point; she had to buy books like those in an actual book store. And first years weren't allowed to visit Hogsmeade yet.

Sure, Hermione could have ordered the books easily. They said that the shops in Hogsmeade, and even in Diagon Alley, could send you a lot of stuff with owls in no time.

But what if Ron and Harry weren't giving _her_ anything at all for Christmas, and if she'd embarrass herself by putting way too much effort in the whole thing?

No, she needed something small. Something nice and friendly and not too meaningful. She'd barely been friends with the two of them for more than a month! Although it felt like way more, didn't it?

Hermione sighed. Parchment and quills and books about Quidditch and all that - it didn't really seem right.

She could just ask her Mum for help. Perhaps, her Mum would send her something nice and sweet then.

Like her self-made lollipops, or her peppermint and raspberry candy canes.

But while those sweets were perfect for someone like herself, Hermione wasn't entirely sure how _Ron_ would think about sugar-free treats. And for some reason, it seemed very important what Ron thought about his present from her. It might even be the first time he'd eat Muggle candy, and Hermione didn't really want him to get the wrong impression of it.

Ron chose that moment to appear from somewhere behind her. She heard his laughter as he approached, and quickly hid the list of possible presents under some pile of her homework.

"Oh, of course you'd still be here!" He commented, rolling his eyes with a sort of grin that wasn't all that annoyed, and stepped beside her chair. "Harry and I are going to have dinner, do you want to come too, or are you still busy finishing unnecessary essays?"

"How could an essay possibly be unnecessary, Ron?" Hermione commented, standing up, while putting her things away. She didn't want to risk Ron seeing her silly Christmas gift list, so she hurried a little.

"If it's due to next week, it's definitely unnecessary," he explained, as they walked through the door. Then he reached into his robe pocket and pulled a small bag of Berty Bott's Every Flavour Beans out of it. He pulled a few beans out, throwing them into his mouth in one quick motion, before offering Hermione some. She felt her cheeks warm up at the niceness of the gesture, in that weird, lovely way in which your cheeks warm up when you see old people hug each other, or something. Because, ..really, Ron didn't have a lot of money. His family was... well, they were pretty poor, based on everything she had heard and seen so far. And he _loved_ sweets.

But _of course_ he was sharing his Berty Bott's Beans with her. _That's just what Ron Weasleys do, isn't it?_ Sharing their sticky, sugary wizards sweets with the world, as if it wasn't something he completely adored and didn't get to have half as often as he liked.

Berty Botts Beans were quite funny, come to think of it, and Hermione was about to go through with it and grab one out of his offered bag, when she already changed her mind again. Her fingers curled securely around the palm that had just been about to reach out for the candy. She was the daughter of two very responsible dentists, after all. _And_ it was almost dinner time.

"Ron, how can you possibly eat sweets now?" she wondered out loud. "We're about to have dinner!"

"And?" He questioned, getting himself another bean. This one was orange and slightly blue-dotted.

"You're about to ruin your appetite," Hermione argued. Ron raised an eyebrow at her.

"You've seen me eat, right?"

"Well, you're going to ruin your teeth at any rate."

"Teeth are made for eating things with them, Hermione! Telling someone they shouldn't eat sweets because it might make their teeth fall out is like... like telling someone to not use a quill because the quill might break, or something." He looked at her triumphantly as she snorted.

"That's a bit different Ron. Quills are only made for that one purpose; writing with them. Whereas teeth are there for eating all different sorts of things! And there are lots of healthier things to eat than Berty Bott's Beans. A lot of stuff tastes better, too, I would suppose."

"How would you know? It's not like you constantly eat them, Hermione!"

"No, but I've seen you eat them often enough, and Harry, too. Half of the time you're making these really disgusted or scared faces, I don't know what's supposed to be so great about that."

"Well, that's part of the fun," Ron shrugged, grinning a bit. "The risk of getting the yucky beans. Come on, Hermione, you tried them on Halloween, you have to admit that the risk is pretty fun!"

She looked up at him for a second as they passed through another corridor. He had a point, she thought. That Halloween night in the common room, shortly after the troll attack, had been one of the nicest nights in Hermione's entire life, so far. And every single bit of it had been fun.

Well, after the first few moments of embarrassment, obviously. She and Harry and Ron sat together and talked and laughed, and for the first time really appreciated each other being here at Hogwarts. And then the boys had been curious about why she wasn't eating any more candy - it was Halloween, after all! - and she had explained to them that her parents were dentists and not all keen on too much sugar.

Which ended in them making her try quite a few more kinds of candy than her mother would ever like to see Hermione eating. And it had been entirely, _completely_ worth it.

Now, surrounded by the orange gleam of the corridor they were in, Ron reached for the bag of Berty Bott's Beans again, holding it out in front of her. It was an offer and a dare in once, but for whatever unknown reason, Hermione actually pulled one of the beans out of there and let it slip between her lips. A light blue one.

A yummy one!

"Cinnamon!" she exclaimed with a surprised beam, and Ron started laughing at her expression. Not in a rude way, though.

"See? Not all of them are bad! You want another?"

She pondered for a few seconds, and then took a light yellow bean.

And after that, there was another bean. And then anther, and then another.

By the time Ron and Hermione met Harry in front of the Great Hall, they were both laughing and making faces because of all the weird tastes they had found.

"What's so funny?" Harry wondered, chuckling, and Ron offered a bean to Harry, too.

She'd have to brush her teeth twice as well tonight, Hermione decided. And she'd have to make sure to not eat as much candy _all_ the time. But now and then, in the company of her new best friends, such sweets might be not such a bad thing, after all.

And that's why Hermione decided to give Ron another bag of those funny beans for Christmas. Maybe he might share them with her and Harry, or eat them all by himself all at once. She would be interested to see what he did, as she wasn't quite sure – it could go either way.

Anyway, it would be a nice gift, wouldn't it? And Harry... Harry she could give some chocolate frogs, she decided. Chocolate was a great gift, too.

It was a real relief to be done with the Christmas planning, Hermione thought, while meeting Ron's amused grin over their plates. The library would be a place for only studying and reading again, by tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

_**December 1992**_

There was a spider in the common room.

No, really: An actual, disgusting spider sat right there on the carpet in front of the fireplace. Eyeing Ron with gigantic, disgusting spider eyes. Crawling closer with those freakish, gigantic, disgusting spider legs.

On bloody Christmas Eve.

Well, it wasn't Christmas Eve _yet_ , it was just about ten 'o clock in the morning, but it was December 24th, and therefore spiders were something entirely inappropriate, according to Ron.

He knew what to do, of course. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened. Ron just found it really unfair that contrarious creatures like spiders could exist during this time of the year at all. With all the miles of snow-covered ground in front of the tower's window, and stuff.

What he had to do was: take a really deep breath, close his eyes, and leave. He would go back upstairs to the dormitory, pretend to be asleep, (or try to go back to sleep, for that matter,) and come back down here a bit later. Breakfast in the Great Hall was something he could still have in half an hour, and surely Harry or Hermione would wait for him, or something. Yes, that looked like his best option: Leave and wait for the spider to disappear, too.

Just as Ron was about to go through with his plan, an all-too-familiar voice made him stop in his tracks.

"Ron?" she asked, sounding amused, "Where are you going?"

He turned back around to face her, ignoring the spider that sat between the two of them on the floor, a few metres away. He tried _really_ hard not to wince. She'd caught him in a rather unhappy moment...

"Er, what?" Ron answered, sounding a little dumb even to his own ears. Hermione stood there with a book in her arms, wearing a thick woollen jumper he hadn't seen on her yet. It was green and fluffy. Her book was big and looked boring; however, the green, fluffy jumper looked nice, and one of her eyebrows was raised.

He desperately hoped she wouldn't notice that thing on the floor. She'd only tease him if she saw...

"You seem like you were about to go back up there," she explained, pointing towards the boys staircase. "Did you forget something?"

"Yes," he replied, trying to sound nonchalant, "I left my…wand…on the bedside table. I'm gonna get it, alright?"

"Your wand is right here," she laughed, gesturing at his left pants pocket, where the broken and barely recognisable-as-a-wand was halfway hanging out. Ron looked down. "So, can we go have breakfast? I think everyone's already there, it's so quiet…?"

That was true: while the currently-almost-uninhabited common room was often quiet, it was _also_ often very loud. The Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were the only ones staying in Hogwarts over the holidays, and Fred and George took that as an opportunity to make as much noise as they liked. Everyone else, except for Percy, happily joined them in this. There were no classmates to be bothered with rackety games of Exploding Snap, their laughter and their chats were noisier than usual, and also there was lots of space to practise duelling in. It was awesome!

"Er…yeah, why don't you go first, and I'll join you there in a bit?" Ron suggested, rubbing his neck without meeting her eyes.

She was quiet for a second, which caused Ron to _do_ look up at her, though. Hermione seemed confused and a little quizzical about his behaviour. She narrowed her eyes and looked him over, obviously knowing that something was weird here. That was not good, Ron decided, trying and failing to look normal and carefree. He even smiled at her, which might have made him look even more suspicious, in that instant, for Hermione's eyebrows shot up expectantly. She could read him like a book sometimes. Which was far from practical, because, for a thirteen-year old, Hermione Granger was very experienced in reading books.

He made the mistake of dropping his gaze to the floor again. Only for half a second or so, really! Ron just had to know whether the spider was still there or not, in a similar way, he realised, as Hermione had to know why he was currently acting so strangely.

The spider wasn't there anymore. _Oh no._ It had moved about four or five inches closer. _Towards him._

Ron tried hard to avoid being obvious about his inner panic, as he pressed his lips together tightly and took a small step backwards. His eyes met Hermione's once again - just in time to see her burst with laughter.

"Oh!" she said, giggling like crazy, and stared at the spider, too. "Oh, _that's_ what's going on!"

"It's. _Not_. Funny!" Ron hissed, staring at her in annoyance. He really should have never told her and Harry about the whole spider crisis with his teddy bear, ten years ago; she clearly wasn't taking the matter seriously enough. He tried to break through to her:

"It's Christmas, okay? It's not normal for spiders to be in here at Christmas!"he explained furiously.

That only made Hermione laugh harder, and it took about a whole minute for her to calm back down again.

"Are you done?" Ron wanted to know, rolling his eyes at her.

"Y-yes.", she nodded, while obviously trying to suppress another wave of laughter. Her face was very flushed and her brown eyes were lighter than usual. "So, you see a spider down here, and you let it keep you from having breakfast?"

"I wasn't really that hungry," Ron shrugged, right as his stomach gave a loud growl to prove him wrong. Hermione's lips twitched.

"How come you still haven't had breakfast, by the way?" Ron asked her, partly to distract her.

"Oh, I was in the library all morning. And then I had a look at the Potion. It definitely won't take much longer until it's ready," she told him. He gave a nod, halfway excited and halfway nervous to hear so. It wasn't like Ron didn't look forward to finally finding out about Malfoy being Slytherin's heir (or not); he just wasn't really that fond of the general idea of drinking Polyjuice Potion. Any Potion that included a part of Crabbe's or Goyle's body would surely be sickening.

"Anyway, now that I'm here, we should get going, don't you think? The others might come back soon, and we don't want anyone to, er, _see you looking for your wand_ , do we?"

Ron didn't quite get what she was on about for a second, but then Hermione smiled and pulled a tissue out of her skirt pocket. She kneeled on the floor, close to the spider, and - Ron held his breath - smashed it between two layers of the tissue. She didn't carefully let the spider crawl there, she didn't levitate the spider out of the window, like Ron's Dad always did; no, she actually smashed it with her tissue-clothed fingertips. And Ron couldn't help but to stupidly grin at her for it.

"So," she said, standing back up and brushing non-existent dust off of her skirt in the process, "Ready to have breakfast?"

The way she'd said that... Like it wasn't a very big deal or anything, the way she'd just bend down and smashed the spider.

But it was kind of wonderful, really.

Ron wondered what she would have done to the spider if he hadn't been looking. Would she just have ignored it, when seeing it? Would she have pulled out her quill and gently let the thing crawl on there, before opening the window and softly blowing or dropping it outside? Ron had seen her do so with other bugs before. A ladybug once, at least.

And ladybugs were obviously entirely different than spiders. Ladybugs were harmless. Ladybugs were pretty.

But then again, Hermione didn't really seem to think of spiders as something dangerous or revolting, either. She found the fact that Ron was scared of spiders hilarious. And she probably wouldn't be superficial enough to judge a bug for its looks, so it didn't really matter whether ladybugs were prettier than spiders, either. Even though they SO obviously were. Everything was prettier than spiders.

He glanced over at her, and well, she looked like she always did. Not agitated from the spider incident, or anything. She actually looked... quite happy. And maybe she was. Maybe she was happy to have helped Ron. Hermione flashed a small grin at him, right then, and he chuckled. Perhaps she was kind of proud, or something. Perhaps this was a bit of a reward for him (and Harry) saving her from the troll in first year. Now, she had saved him in return. From a spider, okay, but if you asked Ron, a spider could easily be more terrifying than a troll. And Harry and Ron hadn't killed the troll, back then, either. They'd just made him leave her alone and faint. _She'd_ literally _smashed_ an enemy for Ron. That was something very nice, actually. If the two of them hadn't been even so long before already, they would certainly be now.

It occurred to Ron, as they were walking through all the heavily decorated corridors of their school, this was the first Christmas he and Harry would spend with Hermione. She hadn't been here last year, but this time around, she'd be.

She would be able to try all the special Christmas dishes at dinner, and to exchange presents with Ron and Harry face to face, perhaps there would even be time for them to build a snowman all together. Hermione would be right here next to them, talking about homework and Polyjuice Potion and reading books and also eliminating spiders for him, as it seemed.

And maybe, all of this meant that Christmas would turn out even slightly better this year than usually. It certainly felt like it might.


	3. Chapter 3

_A.N.: Hello again, we're in "Prisoner of Azkaban" now! Thanks again to **CeeCeeSings** , and to everyone who's reading and leaving me reviews. :)_

* * *

 _**December, 1993**_

"You have to talk to him," she muttered, anxiously eyeing Ron across the edge of her book. The common room was quiet; it was the first truly peaceful December morning in here, with the soft snowfall outside and all of their class mates gone, but the current situation was hardly enjoyable.

"Why do _I_ have to talk to him?" Ron complained, looking almost equally nervous as his eyes glanced towards the staircase to the boys' dormitories. "You know how he gets. Besides, you already made me check on him last night, and I'm pretty sure he was only pretending to be asleep then. He wants us to leave him alone, Hermione."

"Yes, but we can't!" she argued heatedly, and for a weird second she almost reached up with her left hand, intending to bite her nails. But then she remembered that she'd mostly abandoned this habit years ago, so she quickly dropped the shaking palm into her lap again. "We need to tell him that he's not allowed to do something disastrous."

"He's not _allowed_?" Ron asked, almost smirking in spite of his apprehension.

"Yes, he's not allowed," she stated. "Ron, what do you think will happen if we don't step in? If we let Harry do whatever _he_ wants to do about all of this?"

Ron was quiet, apparently playing all the scenarios out in his mind, considering all that had been said and done during the past few hours... or rather the past two and a half years that they had been friends with Harry Potter by now. Hermione could read in his features that Ron agreed with her.

Sirius Black (dangerous, heartless escaped mass-murderer Sirius Black) had betrayed Harry's parents in a horrible way. Harry Potter (loyal, brave, and often impulsive Harry Potter) would not react calmly to this new revelation.

 _Why did he have to get his hands on that suspicious Marauders map in the first place,_ Hermione pondered angrily. Why did Fred and George keep it even after finding out about the fact that a murderer was somewhere out there? A murderer who was likely to break into their school?! If Ron's brothers hadn't led Harry out of the castle yesterday, he wouldn't have turned up in Hogsmeade. He would have stayed in Hogwarts, bored but safe, and he wouldn't have spent his evening avoiding her and Ron out of sheer grief and rage and shock over something that had happened many years ago.

Hermione didn't blame any of their teachers, or Dumbledore, or Hagrid, or even Ron's parents, for never mentioning anything of all this to Harry. For never talking about the fact that Sirius Black had been so close to Harry's Dad. How could you possibly explain something like that to a thirteen-year-old? How could you ever possibly make it be the kind of information that was bearable for a teenager? It just wasn't. Harry's Dad and Sirius Black? _Best friends? Like brothers?_

How was that ever supposed to be okay?

And if Harry was supposed to _look_ so much like his dad, was it possible then that the deep trust he liked to put into some people, his utter loyalty towards his friends, was also an inheritance of his father? Was it possible that James Potter had felt about Black in a similar way to how Harry felt towards her and Ron?

She stole a thoughtful look at Ron and immediately met his eyes. And it was quiet, up here in the Gryffindor tower, quiet enough to fully recognise the position they were in. The responsibility that they shared.

They, Ron and Hermione, were quite possibly the only two people in the world who could make sure that the boy who lived kept living.

Well, perhaps that wasn't true, maybe Dumbledore or McGonagall or any other adult around them was more capable of keeping Harry away from harm than his two best friends could ever be. But in moments like this, when Harry's temper and bravery got the best of him and it was up to them to talk some sense into the brain behind that scarred forehead, it surely felt like they were in charge.

Ron's worried blue eyes twitched as his upper lip formed an understanding sort of half-smile. Yes, they both knew that this whole Sirius Black-thing was officially _their_ problem.

Crookshanks chose this moment to make a dramatic appearance that ended the short, comfortable silence. He meowed and walked circles around Hermione's legs, softly rubbing his fur against her warm stockings.

"Oh, look who's here!" she murmured with a smile, more to herself than to anyone else, and she gently picked her cat up from the floor, letting Crookshanks sit in her arms.

"Yeah, look who's here," Ron repeated, annoyed, and Hermione saw him roll his eyes and cross his own arms in front of his chest. The whole problem between Scabbers and Crookshanks, or rather between Ron and Crookshanks, still poisoned the air between Ron and Hermione quite often. She really wished Ron could get over his ridiculous hatred for her pet, but at the same time a small, not quite yet fully conscious part of her understood perfectly well how worried he must feel because of Scabbers' current health problems. Ron actually really liked his rat, despite all the bad comments he'd let drop about only ever getting hand-me-downs in every area of his life. Scabbers was important to Ron, and of course that made him feel suspicious about Crookshanks. The thing was that Crookshanks was important to her, too, now.

The way he'd sat there in the pet shop in Diagon Alley, a few months ago! The way he'd blinked up at her with curious eyes and fluffy fur, while the lady who owned the shop had explained to her how no one ever wanted that cat... Crookshanks was all alone in the world, and while he might not be the prettiest cat ever, he certainly seemed charming and unusual and deserving of a real home. So Hermione had bought him. Just like that. He was her fourteenth birthday-present. It didn't matter that Harry and Ron weren't really fond of him yet. They would come around to it, maybe.

"So, what do you want me to say to him?" Ron asked her, distractedly, and Hermione remembered their previous conversation about Harry.

"We just... We need to make it crystal clear to him that there is no need or advantage in getting himself into danger. And that... hunting Sirius Black down is about the most horrible idea ever."

"He won't listen," Ron said at once. "He'll just get angrier, and probably start yelling at people..."

"Yes, but he'll have to listen to _us_!" Hermione muttered, sounding desperate. "He'll... oh Ron, he's going to get himself into so much trouble!"

"Let's look at this logically, okay?" Ron said, moving closer and perhaps trying to calm her down. (The way he said that word, _"logically"_... it was kind of... well, it was kind of nice, for some reason.) "What could we say for him to get a grip?"

"We could distract him," Hermione pondered. "It's Christmas after all. There will be something to distract him with, right? The holidays are fun! We can play games up here in the common room, and we can do some homework together...-"

Ron snorted. "You say that like it's a fun, Christmassy thing to do, doing homework."

"It's better than thinking about what we heard yesterday, Ron!" she hissed.

"Yeah, that's... that's true," he answered, looking thoughtful again. "I really wonder how all of that can be for real. How Harry's dad could have been best friends with... a murderer."

"A murderer and a traitor."

"M-hm. Bloody hell."

"Indeed."

For a second there was this weird sort of understanding in the air between them. This sense of mutual helplessness. Then they met each other's eyes and somehow found it in themselves to grin about their strange situation.

"Let's just wait here, okay?" Hermione offered. "Let's let him sleep as long as he wants, and then talk to him together, yes? Might be easier."

"What, do you think I'm not convincing enough on my own?" Ron wanted to know. His voice sounded offended, but when she looked over he was still smiling.

"I just think you might skip the whole idea of using homework as a distraction, just because you find it not Christmassy enough, or something," Hermione shrugged, her lips twitching.

Ron laughed. "Well, okay then. Let's talk to him _together_."


	4. Chapter 4

**_December, 1994_**

This was... nothing.

No, really. It didn't matter how his head ached from shouting at her earlier, or how his legs felt tired from sitting in the exact same spot for most of the evening, or how he had felt too angry to do much else for hours and hours while everyone else had fun.

It didn't matter what he'd felt and said or how confused she had reacted at first... How confusedly Harry had reacted, too. Embarrassed and confused. But Harry didn't really matter, either, right now.

And it certainly didn't matter what Hermione had accused him of. What she'd implied, standing there in her blue ball gown and her make-up and her flat, pinned-up hair.

None of that mattered at all.

She'd already been so much crazier before already, after all! And their rows had been more serious, too. Ron's brain jumped back to a million small sequences he vaguely remembered, lying there in the darkness of his dormitory bed, the curtains closed and the light gone.

The whole thing with Scabbers and Crookshanks last year unfolded itself again... Ron thought back to the ugly things he'd said about her not being able to control her pet. Guilt crept up in him at the thought of how she must have suffered from all the extra school work her time turner must have caused her, during that time... Although having a time turner in general had not so much been Hermione's problem, rather the exhaustion that her almost endless eagerness to read and learn had induced. Hermione spent way too much time studying, as it was! Putting an endless amount of _extra_ study time and heaps of _additional_ work into Hermione's fourteen year old hands had not been McGonagall's brightest idea, Ron reckoned.

And how much in need of a friend she might have been right then. Right at the moment when an ugly rat (that wasn't even a _real_ ugly rat, but a well disguised, spineless Deatheater, in reality!) had seemed more important than their friendship.

But she really could have tried a little harder to control that cat, Ron thought angrily, in spite of his inner knowing better. Scabbers could easily have turned out to be the harmless, scared little rat Ron had seen in him before the end of their last school year. And Crookshanks could have been Scabbers' cruel murderer.

Ron sighed, shaking his head against the pillow, and gripping the bridge of his long nose between two fingers. She actually hadn't been that irresponsible, he admitted. According to Sirius, Crookshanks was a highly intelligent little guy, and he would probably have found ways towards the suspicious rat he was stalking, anyway. It wasn't entirely Hermione's fault that Crookshanks was such a capable contract killer.

And then, the feeling of Hermione's arms around Ron's neck came to mind, and the internal shock wave Ron had felt when she'd pressed her entire front against his as her apology replayed itself in Ron's entire bloodstream. No, really. Lying here, many months later in his bed in the Gryffindor tower, Ron actually shivered from the weird mixture of embarrassment and awkwardness and shock and... something else... that he'd felt _last_ school term.

Also, there had been that crazy, amazing thing she'd done only a couple of days later... When Draco had acted like a douchebag, as usual, and Hermione had just... she'd... she had punched him straight in the face. All flustered and angry and somehow gloriously ignorant to just how _cool_ she looked right then...

But Ron quickly abandoned all thoughts in this direction, because this wasn't about Hermione being a cool person to hang out with. Not at all. No, this was about how much of a strange, crazy person she could be, and how everything about tonight was just another one of her crazy mistakes! Going out with Victor Krum? No, not _going out_ , Ron quickly corrected, because that was an idea he wasn't fully ready to acknowledge yet. Maybe he'd never be. Because, seriously, Victor Krum?!

Dancing with Victor Krum, THE INTERNATIONAL QUIDDITCH PLAYER VICTOR KRUM, at a school ceremony was about the weirdest thing Ron could ever imagine Hermione doing.

Although the whole "S.P.E.W." thing was pretty ridiculous, too, of course. He almost snorted out loud, right then, spitefully thinking about her desperate attempts to become better at knitting clothes for Hogwarts' house elves. House elves that neither needed nor wanted clothes! And she was running around with these badges, hoping to get people on her side, when really most of the people she talked to probably made fun of her for it right after. How could she be so stubborn sometimes? And how could someone who was as incredibly intelligent be so focused on something so _weird_? Did she not notice how people were looking at her for it, after she brought up the topic, or did she frankly not care?

 _She probably really didn't care_ , Ron pondered. She was like that, wasn't she? Not letting people bring her down, standing up for what she thought was right, and stuff. She didn't really care about gossip. She somehow seemed to stand above it, mostly. And the things that did hurt her, that did make her cry... Mostly it was stuff that _he_ said. Ron. Or... or maybe Snape sometimes, but... Yeah, mostly Ron.

And now she was probably really angry at him for acting like he did all night...

He was really angry, too, but it was hard to make out the exact reason why. It was hard to _want_ to make out the exact reason why, really.

Because, at the end of the day, she was still Hermione and he was still Ron.

In the morning, they would probably get up and everything would be normal again. Well, he prayed that it would be, because the possibility of anything else was too much to process for his tired mind, right now.

They would talk over breakfast. Maybe they would completely ignore the whole Yule Ball thing, or maybe there would be some weird atmosphere, for a few minutes, but nothing more...

Maybe they could completely forget about the whole subject. Yes, that would be perfect.

Except for the fact that Victor Krum was still here. Grumpy, boring, old Victor Krum. Way too old for even talking to any of them! Was that even legal?! An eighteen-year-old guy talking to a barely fifteen-year-old girl? It seemed illegal. Victor Krum could easily be twenty-five or something, the way he looked! Possibly even thirty! Yes, that seemed about right. Victor Krum was old-looking and grumpy and the fact that he chose to ask Hermione to the Yule Ball at all was about the most inappropriate thing Ron had ever heard of. Except for her saying yes, of course. For her to agree to go to the Yule Ball with Victor Krum was her worst decision ever, period.

And it didn't matter in the slightest how she'd looked tonight, Ron added to himself, as he reached under his bed and absent-mindedly grabbed something from there. It didn't matter. Not how she'd beamed, or something.

How she'd basically masked herself for that grumpy idiot; her bushy, unusual waves of hair straightened, her skin all covered in skin-coloured paint, her lashes heavy with some sort of black ink... Was she trying to blend in with the Lavenders and Parvatis and Padmas and Pansy Parkinsons out there, or something?

Ron remembered the intimidating herds of girls he and Harry had watched these past few days. The girls that giggled non-stop and walked everywhere in groups and where so unlike Hermione that they had basically been invisible to Ron before the question of who to bring to the Yule Ball existed. And maybe, Hermione had been invisible, too, somehow. Just in a completely different way. Had she _felt_ invisible, Ron suddenly wondered? He remembered how offended she'd reacted to his Yule Ball invitation... How she'd said that _other_ people _did_ know that she was a girl.

Had Hermione been trying to make more people see her like that, tonight? Was that the reason for her dress and her hair and her make-up, - _perhaps even for her "new" teeth?!_

Was the way she looked every single day, _the way she looked when she flipped through old parchment and ate and chatted and talked and explained and scolded_ somehow not... good enough for _Vicky_? Not glamorous enough? Was he so important that Hermione felt the need to change things about her looks _for him_?

The idea was _disgusting._

Hermione wasn't supposed to change. Not like that. And _not_ for someone like _Vicky._ Even if she admittedly looked … pretty … doing so.

But it didn't matter how she'd looked tonight. How she'd laughed and twirled and how her dress had hugged her body and how she'd exuded warmth or some sort of glow, a few hours earlier...

And it certainly didn't matter, Ron decided, pushing small limbs of that stupid little doll off of his sheets, that Hermione had refused to go to the Yule Ball with Ron instead, the day before.

None of that stuff mattered.

It was really late and time to go to sleep, already.


	5. Chapter 5

_**December, 1995**_

"This time you just have to admit it!" he laughed as they emerged from the Room of Requirement. Hermione just rolled her eyes and fumbled with the strap of her heavy bag.

"I don't have to admit anything, Ron, and you know it," she answered, matter-of-factly, but he could see her eyes flicker in that challenging way he knew so well.

"Oh, yes, you do! Today I was _so_ obviously better than you at stunning people, I got you at least three times more than you me!"

"Because you're mostly using 'Expelliarmus' first; that would take way too much time in an actual battle."

"Oh, and silently casting a confunding charm is not a waste of time at all?"

"It's less of a waste of time, actually, because it only takes half a second and is very useful. Whereas 'Expelliarmus' means waiting for a wand to fly through the air from your enemy to you; crossing an entire room, maybe! And while you wait for the wand to reach you, someone else might already be attacking you from another angle."

"Oh, come on!" Ron responded, unbelievingly. "We're talking here about two or three seconds at the most!"

"Yeah, but in an actually life-threatening situation, two or three seconds might be quite a huge amount of time," Hermione argued. "So it would make more sense to just stun someone and then focus on the next task, instead of using several different spells in a row on them."

"I bet in an actual fight you'd do the same.", Ron grinned, eyeing her knowingly from the side, as they kept walking. "You wouldn't just stun people, you would disarm them first."

"Well," Hermione shrugged, looking weary, all of the sudden, "We'll see about that..."

And with a jolt, his stomach dropped once again. It was mostly in situations like this, right after playful banter and usual rows with Hermione, that the realisation of just how real this whole thing was really hit Ron. The whole DA thing wasn't just a game or something,- not just a great way to spend more time with her in an almost flirtatious manner. The DA was a necessary invention to increase their chances of survival in the murky, unknown future that slowly approached. There really were actual battles ahead. A _war_.

The whole idea was hard to grasp.

He cleared his throat. "Sorry, I wasn't... I didn't really..."

He wasn't sure how to finish his sentence, but he didn't have to. "No! I mean, it's okay.", she hurried to say, looking a little flustered, too. And with an only slightly nervous laugh and a shake of her head, the two of them were back to feeling normal.

"Don't worry", Hermione stated, cheekily smiling and opening another door, "It's not like I actually believe you won today. I stunned you _way_ more often, so my technique seems to be the right one."

"Oi!" he complained, still pretty certain that that wasn't true, but laughing nonetheless.

He was glad that she'd switched back into fun-mode. This made things a lot easier.

It was only when they were back in the common room that Ron noticed something amiss. He looked around.

"Where's Harry?" he asked Hermione, who had just taken a seat in one of their favourite armchairs by the fireplace. She looked around, and something about her obvious confusion made Ron's skin tingle. She also hadn't noticed Harry missing, for once, all caught up in talking to Ron on their way up here... contemplating this fact was quite...nice.

"Don't know," she muttered, vaguely, "Maybe he wanted to remove Dobby's Christmas decorations?"

Ron snickered, thinking about the shining coins the little elf had put in the Room of Requirement among tons and tons of mistletoe; a whole lot of glittery dilly-dallies with Harry's name and emblem on them.

"Yeah, maybe. Although Dobby will probably remove those again, anyway. Before our next lesson in there, I mean."

"I wouldn't count on that," Hermione grinned, getting parchment and paper out of her bag. "I trust Dobby to find another way to celebrate Harry."

Harry hadn't been removing decoration right in that instant. He'd been involved in something far more interesting, and therefore hadn't come back to the Gryffindor tower yet. Although, yes, Dobby's Christmas decoration was involved in the matter. They should find out about all of this a little later that evening. For now, they just started their separate piles of work, - Ron writing his latest overdue essay, Hermione immersed in some enormous letter.

"I don't get what this is even good for," Ron mumbled at one point. "Shouldn't the OWLs be about stuff that actually matters? What we're learning right now is just a bunch of bloody dragon dung."

Hermione lowered her quill, looking up at him in disbelief. "Ron!"

"What? You can't seriously tell me that you think this Goblin-war-stuff we learn from Binns is interesting to you. Or anything we learn from Umbridge..."

"Umbridge doesn't count," Hermione made clear, challengingly raising an eyebrow. "And, excuse me, of course I find what we learn about the Goblin wars interesting! It's an important element of the Wizarding World's modern relationship to them."

"Riiight, because all of that is so fascinating," he laughed, dipping his quill into the ink jar once again. "To the inventor of 'spew' maybe, but apart from that...-"

"Don't call me "the inventor of spew", Ron! And don't call it "spew" in the first place," Hermione demanded, rolling her eyes exasperatedly. "A little more interest for other creatures' fate would really do no harm, you know? That's why S.P.E.W. is important. It's also why we learn so much about the Goblin wars."

"We learn so much about the goblin wars because the people who make school books are stupid," Ron stated, trying to provoke her further.

"Well, maybe your opinion is stupid," Hermione shot back, looking very annoyed. "Also, the people who make school books don't get to control the whole curriculum, that's what the Ministry is there for."

"Well, alright, whatever.", Ron shrugged, trying to focus back on the modest amount of sentences he'd put to paper yet. "Hey, Hermione, you finished this stuff ages ago, right? Could you perhaps let me -"

"Forget it," she answered, shaking her head without looking up. Ron frowned a little at her, not really having expected her to be so upset about his comments. He'd actually hoped to make her laugh again.

Ron thought about their talk later that night, laying in bed and staring up at the invisible ceiling of his dorm bed. He waited for sleep to reach him, which it probably would in the matter of five minutes or so. Ron had always been a good sleeper. But for the matter of those five minutes, Ron was left with nothing else to do then feel angry and confused about... earlier.

He'd been quite excited for Harry, knowing how interested his best friend had been in Cho Chang for so long, but the way Ron had reacted somehow must have made Hermione think he was insensitive. At least that's what she'd said. She'd explained to Ron and Harry how Cho was having a really bad time and shouldn't be judged for her chaotic emotions. And, yeah, the way Hermione had said it made sense to Ron, but still, poor Harry! Getting snogged for the first time and then being cried all over!

Ron absent-mindedly wondered whether he'd have a problem with something like that if it was someone like... let's say, Hermione. He wasn't quite sure how he'd react if he'd ever kiss Hermione (the mere thought made him feel a little light-headed) and if she'd then start crying and talking about her problems, or something. Ron had to admit that it was way less of an awkward and horrible situation when he put himself in Harry's shoes and Hermione in Cho Chang's. But that was probably mostly due to the fact that any situation seemed kind of amazing when he imagined it in combination with snogging Hermione.

Not, that Ron could tell anyone about such thoughts on her. And it didn't matter really, did it? Because, while he was spending his nights imagining all sorts of things with her, she spend her evenings writing letters to _Vicky_. He was her _pen pal._ Ridiculous. Couldn't she see how much of a grumpy, boring, way-too-old tosser Victor Krum was? Ron certainly could. And with grumpy thoughts of grumpy Vicky in his mind, he fell asleep.

But it's pretty astounding how much things can change in the matter of a few dozen hours.

Twenty-four hours later, Ron knew what it felt like to almost lose his Dad to a giant snake. Not just any giant snake. _You-Know-Who's giant pet snake_. Bloody hell.

Forty-eight hours later, Hermione was with them at Grimmauld Place. Seeing her parents (and watching Muggles put sticks under their feet in order to slide down a snowy mountain) had apparently been less important than being there for his family. Ron couldn't really express to her what it meant to him that she was here, but he was pretty sure that he wouldn't have had the guts to tell her so right now, anyway.

And then there was Christmas, and Hermione was all smiles and adorable sweatshirts and homework planners, and if it hadn't been so utterly impossible, he'd really have liked to hug her. And she seemed happy about his present for her, too! Ron had worried about it being awkward, the perfume he bought for her. There wasn't really the money for a big gift, but he'd saved some wherever he could for months, knowing that he wanted this to mean something. He needed to give her a proper Christmas present for once. Like, a personal Christmas present. Something girlie. Because last year, before the Yule Ball, Ron might have given her quite the wrong idea about what he thought of her. So, perfume it was. He bought her perfume. Cheap, weird, simple perfume, maybe, but perfume non-the-less. And now she'd called it "unusual"! And she'd smiled as she said it. That was good, right? "Unusual" meant good? It had to. It really bloody had to, because Hermione needed to see that he wasn't all insensitive and careless, after all.

And maybe she did. During the following weeks, Ron never noticed her writing another letter to Vicky, at least. And that surely was a good sign, wasn't it?

And sometimes, Ron even thought he could smell that perfume on her. That weird, cheap, simple perfume, which Ron had bought without a clue and which Hermione somehow managed to make smell fantastic just by letting it touch her skin. And she'd surely never worn a Christmas-perfume Vicky had given to her, had she?

No, Ron thought with a smug grin, smelling it on her during their next DA meeting, she hadn't.


	6. Chapter 6

**_December, 1996_**

Christmas felt weird.

It wasn't Christmas yet, of course, but the slightly thrilling happiness that normally came along with the days leading towards it had so completely failed to reach Hermione this year, it was astonishing. Maybe this development had something to do with the current situation with Ron. And maybe the fact that she obviously couldn't discuss the matter with anyone right now wasn't helping either.

But it was not supposed to feel so weird to spend Christmas with her own family, was it? She was sitting in an empty train compartment right now, about to see her parents again in a few hours, and why didn't she feel any Christmas joy at all?

The Weasleys were wonderful. Ginny was wonderful, at least, and the twins could be hilarious whenever they were not being irresponsible in one way or another. Before the whole mess with Umbridge and all that, even Percy had seemed charming to Hermione. An ambitious person to have nice conversations (about being ambitious) with. Mrs Weasley was really motherly and sweet, and Mr. Weasley's curiosity for everything Muggle was quite possibly the most amusing part of every dinner or breakfast she'd had in his presence. And Harry was with them, too, of course. So, a big part of Hermione would have loved to spend Christmas at the Burrow for the first time.

A bigger part of her was completely repulsed by the idea, of course.

Not that anyone had asked her to spend Christmas at the Burrow with them, anyway. Things were too complicated and awkward for even Harry or Ginny to suggest such a thing.

Hermione wondered what Ron had told his parents. Or the twins, or Bill, Charlie,...anyone really.

Did Mrs. Weasley know about Ron's _relationship_ with Lavender? Was she excited and happy that her youngest son had his first girlfriend now? Hermione imagined Mrs. Weasley with tears in her eyes, saying something sweet about how all her kids were growing up so fast, or something like that. A similar reaction to the way Mrs. Weasley had looked after she and Ron had received their prefect badges last year...

The prefect rounds had gotten pretty weird, too, by now.

Hermione mostly did them on her own, lately, climbing out of the common room's portray hole far earlier than usual and hoping for him to get the message and leave her alone. She and Ron were _both_ Gryffindor prefects and supposed to control the corridors together; they were supposed to be a team in this, after all. But the mere idea of being part of a team with Ron was impossible right now, and Hermione's wish to stick to the concrete rules was not as big as her anger towards her former best friend. She tried not to think about how the expression "former best friend" burned a small hole in her stomach every time. She tried not to think all that much about any of this at all.

The few times he'd followed her, trying to catch up with her in the hallways, she'd ignored him and quickened her pace.

He'd surely have been able to reach her and walk next to her, easily. His legs were ridiculously long, after all. But Ron seemed to have accepted their current state of silence and occasional nasty comments just as much as she had, so Hermione was able to focus on other things from now on. Other things than giggling, blonde roommates and idiotic boys, and ridiculous necklaces and potential former crushes on former best friends.

The good news about the last bit was, though, that Hermione didn't have to feel guilty about last year's Christmas present for Ron any longer. A homework-planner might not have been the best idea for someone like him, as she had to admit in hindsight. Even if it was really useful and fancy and absolutely amazing for general OWL-year-organisation. But it was _still_ so much better than any form of jewellery with engraved terms of endearment on it.

Ron _couldn't_ possibly be happy about a necklace that titled him someone's "sweetheart". Seriously, judging by the way Lavender and even Parvati had swooned over the present you would think they'd never even met him before! Or any boy their age for that matter. Hermione was relatively certain that Ron would be embarrassed by the idea of wearing Lavender's "My sweetheart" necklace in public. Then again, Hermione pondered, getting irritated again, he didn't seem to mind the non-stop public snogging so much, either. So, perhaps the necklace wasn't as pathetic to him as it seemed to Hermione, after all. Perhaps he'd even like it. Perhaps he'd even _wear_ it.

Despite her anger, Hermione snorted, shaking her head against the cushion. Now she almost wanted Ron to wear it. It would look extremely funny, and she just logically couldn't be the only person in Hogwarts who would think so. No way! Maybe she wanted him to wear it and then to get teased for it. Maybe she wanted just that.

Which was obviously very childish.

Sighing, Hermione let her quiet laughter fade away as the grin slipped from her lips. Actually, she shouldn't even have overheard that conversation about Ron's silly Christmas gift. She tried so, so hard to ignore Lavender's and Parvati's constant chats in their dormitory. She didn't want to listen to any of it. Not to the whispering. Not to the giggling. Not to their conversations about boys – about _her_ boy.

Oh, bloody hell.

She hadn't really just thought that, had she? How utterly ridiculous!

Ron wasn't _hers_ , alright? Just as much as she wasn't _his_.

Just because a small part of her was suffering from his absence in her life, and from the things he said and did, didn't mean that anything about her _belonged_ to Ron. No. Hermione belonged to herself, she decided, utterly and truly. And maybe a little bit to her parents, too, who were so far away most of the time but about to be around her over Christmas. Which was good. All of this was actually alright.

And no boy who preferred to snog her room-mates (or who potentially wore stupid necklaces) instead of going to a Christmas party with her (or using her awesome homework-planners), was allowed to make Hermione Granger feel unhappy. Even if the boy was Ron. Even if she'd thought he'd _like_ to go with her to Slughorn's party and... _belong_ to her, in a palpable way.

But maybe she'd been a... _a last resort_ , once again, before Ron had noticed his other options, or something... Maybe the whole thing had been about going to a party in the first place. About doing the sort of thing Ron wanted to try so badly. Drinking alcohol and snogging girls. Not necessarily _her_. Just _girls_.

Hermione's eyelids dropped shut and she rubbed her temples, her ring finger drawing random patterns between thumb and index finger.

She remembered how Cormac had grasped for her hand, a few days ago at Slughorn's Christmas party, and thought about how he'd pressed all of her fingers together in a tight grip. The sort of grip that was probably necessary for hobbies like fishing, or arm wrestling, Hermione contemplated. His partly indifferent and vain, partly intrusive behaviour had not really added much to her enjoyment of the evening. Maybe it hadn't been her best idea to bring Cormac, after all.

And not even because he was a moron, or because Zacharias Smith was (maybe) a less-annoying moron, but because of the simple truth that Hermione had solemnly intended to frustrate Ron with the whole plan. When really it might have been better _for herself_ to bring someone _nice_. Someone she could actually try to see herself with. She could have tried to use the advice she'd given Ginny ages ago for herself: she could have tried to acknowledge the boys around her that she actually might like, instead of focusing only on one person. Trying to annoy Ron by bringing Cormac to a Christmas party had, at the end of the day, not served Hermione at all. It was all still about _him_. All Hermione had earned was the knowledge that it wasn't very fun to invite people like Cormac MacLaggen to Christmas parties.

"You look sad."

Hermione shrieked and jumped slightly in her seat, staring at the pale, blond-haired person in front of her. Luna was sitting across from her in the train compartment, holding a magazine in her lap that was most likely the latest issue of "The Quibbler". Luna smiled.

"Merlin, Luna, I didn't see you sitting there at all!" Hermione mumbled, embarrassment catching up with her at the thought of how angry and weird she must have looked during the past few minutes. But then again, this was Luna Lovegood sitting across from her, and seeming weird was probably not something Hermione needed to worry about so much in the Ravenclaw's presence.

"I was going to the toilet earlier, and on my way back I saw you sitting here all alone. You looked interesting," Luna explained, dreamily. "So I came back and brought all my stuff a little while ago." She pointed at her trunk resting next to her on the bench, and at her magazine.

"You thought I looked ' _interesting'_?" Hermione asked, curious.

"Very much so, indeed!" Luna answered. "You looked very agitated, as if you were arguing with someone in here that I can't see. Did you recently spend a lot of time under mistletoe, Hermione? Nargles are a big problem during this time of the year."

Hermione didn't quite know how to react to that, as it was often the case when Luna Lovegood spoke, but she settled for another unhappy sigh.

"I'm just a little... distracted, Luna. It's not that easy to get into a festive mood this year, I guess."

"Why, because of Ron Weasley?" Luna asked, and Hermione blinked in surprise. Was she really _that_ easy to read? Not that it was entirely true, anyway, she hurried to tell herself.

"You were upset after he was rude to you last week," Luna stated, matter-of-factly, and Hermione remembered the whole embarrassing bathroom encounter with Luna -who had really been a great friend, in that instant, seeing as Hermione had been in big need of a hug and had actually received one from Luna, of all people.

"Yes, he's still... I mean, we're still not on good terms, Luna. But that doesn't matter. It's Christmas after all, right? I don't want to think about all that other stuff right now." Hermione forced a smile and tried to actually mean what she said, but Luna eyed her questioningly.

"Then why are you?" she said, lightly and seemingly puzzled. Luna returned her attention to the magazine, which _was_ "The Quibbler", as suspected. Hermione blinked back down to her own lap, and was surprised to find their potions school book to lay there, closed. Not only was the book closed, Hermione also couldn't even remember the page she'd been reading on anymore. Or the chapter. Or the general topic she'd been reading about earlier.

Huh.

Had she really been so distracted by thinking about Ron that she'd lost all focus on what she was doing?

 _Yes._

Luna was right, for once. Hermione was sad. Very much so.

And maybe it had something to do with not seeing Harry or Ginny over the holidays, or about how sad it was that there were so many house elves in Hogwarts right now that would spend the holidays almost completely alone in the castle, as always. But Hermione's sadness might also have had the tiniest bit to do with the fact that Lavender Brown was able to give Ron a Christmas present this year, when Hermione wasn't. And the fact that this might have made Hermione a little sad was probably the saddest thing of all. And the most infuriating thing, too.


	7. Chapter 7

**_December, 1997_**

So... Godric's Hollow wasn't the solution to all their problems, after all. Not in the slightest.

Here she sat, now, covered in dirt and a small amount of blood and even some spilled essence of Ditany, gently rubbing a wet cloth against Harry Potter's overheated, scarred forehead, and desperately trying to hold it all together. Just... all of it. Hold it all together, Hermione. The whole world, if you must.

The tension of their situation, the massive pressure to find some sort of clue, and the utter fear and frustration that months and months of hunger and cold had provided, had lead the two of them, Harry and Hermione, right into a trap. Much less weeks and weeks without _him_ at their sides, too...

But _he_ was not something she could allow herself to think about when Harry was sick, and needed tending to.

Not that _he_ was someone she really allowed herself to consciously think about all that often, anyway. But the locket seemed to find ways to make her do it. Or maybe the locket was a fitting excuse for doing so. Whatever.

It was Christmas, she suddenly remembered, as tears crawled behind her tired, bloodshot eyelids. It was Christmas, and she was shivering and hopeless and hungry and she might have just destroyed Harry's wand. Right before coming back here and watching him twist and turn in unconscious pain, as well as vomit. Even now, when he was quiet and lay still in front of her again, and when all the blood was gone, Hermione couldn't help but feel terribly anxious. What if he didn't, couldn't recover? What if it took days, weeks, for him to wake up? She was no professional healer, and she needed sleep at some point, too.

For the millionth time Hermione palms balled into fists, exhaustion and grief hitting so deep that she just wanted to rip a whole book into shreds. No, really. She would stare at all these dark, graphic books about the most hurtful and disgusting types of magic, and she'd seriously wish to rip the whole bunch of nonsense into parts. Sometimes, Hermione would even look at the lighter, normal books she'd brought here with them, and think that she'd like to destroy them. Just because it would feel so nice to rip something apart, right now. To destroy something in an exhausting way. He had made her feel this. He had made her want to destroy books. Books! Wasn't this insane?

Not as insane as leaving her and Harry all alone out here, though. Not after promising and after... everything.

And she'd really, truly thought...

But it didn't matter what she'd thought. What she'd thought _before_.

He was gone and she was here with Harry and the whole bloody weight of the world was crashing down on her with all its damned snakes and broken wands and colds and fears of starvation. The whole bloody world was out there somewhere, waiting for her and Harry to do the right thing, and _he_ \- the only one among them who'd ever really had an option - had chosen to do the wrong thing.

Bloody asshole.

"You're an asshole, Ron Weasley," Hermione whispered into the quiet tent, her gaze never leaving the wet spot where she pressed the cool cloth against her _other_ best friend's head.

She wasn't sure how she felt about saying such words. She'd really just wanted to try out how they'd feel on her tongue, for once.

But they didn't really feel like anything helpful, in that instant, sitting here on the floor with shivering limbs and a knot of fear in her stomach.

Maybe she'd say them again, some day, when all of this was over. If she somehow survived, that was. If she could figure all this mess out, and for some reason see him again. Ron.

"You're an asshole," she repeated. And then to herself she added: "Merry Christmas, Hermione."

And, really, those words didn't feel much more helpful than the stuff she'd quietly said about Ron, or anything.

But it was still nice to hear someone say it.


	8. Chapter 8

_A.N.: So, I hope you enjoyed this little story, and that your holidays will be lovely. Bye!_

* * *

 _ **December, 1998**_

"Can you believe that it's actually Christmas?" she whispered, turning around and beaming at Ron without ever leaving the circle of his arms. He smiled, eyeing her, taking in everything from her happy grin to her completely dishevelled, perfect bushy hair, and before he really knew what he was doing, Ron's mouth was pressing a soft kiss to her lips. How was it possible to taste so much like toothpaste after just waking up, Ron wondered? Was she secretly sneaking away at night, to brush her teeth over and over again? Ron considered asking her this, but the light pressure of her smile against his was just too sweet to end just yet.

When she finally pulled back, his Chudley Canons bedsheets had slipped several inches off of her bare shoulders, reminding Ron of the reality he was currently living in. _Blimey_.

"What?" Hermione asked, noticing his slightly dazed gaze. He laughed, pulling her closer across the mattress by her waist.

"Nothing," he replied, is voice uncharacteristically hoarse.

Hermione's left eyebrow furrowed (or maybe both of them did, but one was kind of hidden by the way it was pressed up against Ron's pillow, so he couldn't really tell right now from this angle). He knew that she was about to comment on how he needed to take better care of himself during all the outside units of his Auror training, wearing warmer clothes underneath his robes, and all that. But while her concern was appreciated, it really was unnecessary.

Ron had felt so much better, so much more contented and healthier again these past few days than during the three weeks _before_ Friday, it was almost embarrassing. Except it _wasn't_ because who could really blame him for missing his fantastic girlfriend like crazy? Exactly; no one could. At least no one who'd ever met the whirlwind called Hermione Granger.

But it was a good thing that she was back at Hogwarts, completing her last year. No matter how much it hurt to be apart, no matter how much his mind and body ached for her sometimes, it was worth it. She belonged behind huge bookshelves. And no matter what she said about being open to the idea of working at the Ministry straight away like he and Harry did, Ron knew what it really meant to her, completing her time in school. He would never have asked her to stay behind for him, just as she hadn't expected him to come back to Hogwarts with her. No matter how much they needed each other. Now more than ever.

His thumb found her cheek and drew lazy circles on her skin. Her answering smile and the way she closed her eyes and scooted closer made Ron's brain tingle.

"They have tons and tons of mistletoe everywhere again. In Hogwarts, I mean."

Her murmuring was soft and quiet, almost as if she was half-asleep. Her nose twitched adorably as she breathed deeply.

"They always do, don't they?" Ron replied, just as quietly. The light of dawn that slowly crept through his attic window made him wrinkle his forehead. As much as he'd like to unwrap Christmas presents, he'd much rather stay a little longer up here in his bed with Hermione in his arms. And, the perfect Head Girl and prefect that Hermione Granger was, she'd surely want to leave his sheets and quietly make her way back downstairs before someone noticed her absence in Ginny's room.

 _Someone_ not so much being Ginny (or Harry, for that matter), but rather Ron's parents. Although Ron was fairly certain that his parents had had their suspicions about everyone's actual nightly whereabouts a long while ago already. They probably wouldn't blame him for wanting to stay close to her after everything. They definitely wouldn't blame _her_ for anything forbidden, he thought with a grin. His parents were ecstatic about his relationship with Hermione. But, well, if it made her feel better to sneak away each morning and pretend that no one knew about their "rule breaking", he'd play along with it.

Ron knew by now that there was quite a lot he'd do to make Hermione happy.

"They do, of course," she said, and it took Ron a moment to remember their current conversation.

"But this year, I noticed that, well..."

"What?" he wondered.

"They hung a mistletoe right at the spot where we... you know? During the battle."

He laughed at her sudden shyness, loosening his hold on her to search for her eyes. "You can use actual words, you know? We _kissed_. I mean, it's really not that much of a big deal after all the other stuff we did, right?" He grinned at his own suggestive tone, but her eyes widened in fake-indignation. Her bottom lip twitched, though.

"Kissing me is not that much of a big deal?" she asked, and he could feel his own features positively soften at her words.

"Oh, sorry. No, of course it is! See?" Ron offered, before dropping three quick pecks on her lips and declaring "Big deal!" "Big deal!" "Big deal!" between them. Hermione laughed.

"They really put a mistletoe there?" He asked her a few minutes later, as he reconsidered her words from earlier.

"M-hm. Right there. That's kind of... odd, isn't it?"

"Not the word I'd use. Rather...don't know, awesome?" He offered.

"'Awesome?'" She chuckled.

"Yeah, I mean, it's almost like the castle _knows_ , isn't it? There were no pictures near, so it's like, you know, the walls _themselves_ saw what happened, or something like that."

"Oh, sure, because it doesn't sound creepy at all if you say it like that," she laughed, and he poked her playfully in the ribs, only making her laugh harder.

"Remember that one time during prefect rounds, when we suddenly stood under a mistletoe?" Ron remembered suddenly. "Bloody hell, that was crazy. I mean, for a second I really thought I might do it..."

"No, you didn't!" she argued, her eyes twinkling. "That was fifth year, you'd never have gone through with it."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that. I just didn't have a real excuse for doing it, that's why. I mean, I was kind of hoping Luna would come along and let some crazy comments about Nargles drop, you know? And then I would have pretended to believe her, or something, and kiss you as a safety measure against the Nargles. After Luna left, of course."

"Did you just make that up? Ron, tell me you did," she pleaded, looking shocked.

He grinned, smugly. "Nope. Just one of my actual, weird fifth year daydreams, I guess."

At that, Hermione seemed extremely interested. "So, there are more?"

"I could probably open up a whole library of weird daydreams about you, now that you ask."

"Are they all as unrealistic as this one? I mean, I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't kiss someone who actually believes in Nargles, Ron," she teased, failing to keep a straight face.

"Some of them are not as unrealistic, I guess. There's different floors in my fantasies-about-Hermione-library, you know? They are all sorted."

"Oh, that's good to hear. I like well-organised libraries, Ron."

"Don't you like all sorts of libraries?"

"I like _you_."

"That's good to hear, too."

Their softy laughter vibrated through the space between their mouths, the two of them sharing the same, confusingly toothpaste-scented breath. Her eyes were all the chocolate in the world, and nothing, not even the promise of presents could make Ron want to leave his bedroom right now. But the sun was already climbing up a little higher behind her, and the shimmering gleam of light that illuminated them reminded Ron on what was to come.

It would be an amazing Christmas, he'd decided. Even if it was one of so many firsts. The first Christmas with a pregnant Fleur (meaning, in other words, Ron's last Christmas before becoming someone's _uncle_ ), the first Christmas with Harry and Ginny being a couple, the first Christmas since the war. The first Christmas without Fred.

It would be a long and horrible and fantastic day, he knew. He wasn't sure if he felt quite ready for another tide of the feelings he'd glimpsed last night, on Christmas Eve.

But Hermione was there. That made it a first, too.

The best first of all.

"I love you, Hermione. So much," he confessed, and although saying that wasn't a first, she managed to answer in a way that he hadn't heard yet. And it was the second best first thing about this year's holidays, without a doubt.

"I love you too, Ron. Merry Christmas!" she said, and dropped another kiss to his ginger-stubbled cheek.


End file.
